Chapter XXIII of Great Expectations,
which presents a portrait of the "toadie" of a previous chapter, Mrs. Pocket, sets her
in contrast to Mr. Matthew Pocket, a true gentleman. This juxtaposition of Mrs. Pocket,
who asks Pip if he likes orange-water in "general conversational condescension," as Pip
remarks, presents again to the reader the hypocrisy of those who aspire to be upper
class.
With characteristic humor, Dickens describes the
fabricated nobility of Mrs. Pocket. She is supposedly the daughter of a knight, who is
"a quite accidental deceased Knight." Thus, there is no proof of her lineage. As
Dickens's narrator, Pip continues to describe her family with confused
humor:
...his
father would have been made a Baronet but for someone's determined opposition, the
Sovereign's, the Prime Minister's, the Chancellor's...I forget whose, if I ever
knew....I believe he had been knighted himself for storming the English grammar at the
point of a pen in a desperate address...for the laying of a stone for some building or
another.
In reality, Mr.
Pocket, a distinguished scholar at Cambridge, has lowered himself by marrying Mrs.
Pocket, yet, Mrs. Pocket is treated with respect because she never married anyone with a
title while he is treated with reproach for not having earned one. And, as the chapter
continues, Pip perceives the true emptiness of Mrs. Pocket's supposed entitlement. For,
she ignores her children who are only saved from peril by the close observation of the
servants. When, for instance, Jane saves the baby from harm with a nutcracker, Mrs.
Pocket berates her for interfering, as she has previously done when a neighbor contacts
her about a servant's mistreatment of another child. It is also futile for Mr. Pocket,
who wrings his hair in despair, to correct her because, as she remarks, "Am I
grandpapa's granddaughter to be nothing in the house?"
Mrs.
Pocket is a characterization of those who aspire to be aristocrats, just as is Uncle
Pumblechook's. In several episodes of his novel, Charles Dickens ridicules the rising
middle class that wishes to arise to what he considers a frivolous aristocracy. Indeed,
Mrs. Pocket is perfect for such satire.
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